You miss my point: the practice can't be done on or off campus until the student is initiated into the practice. The initiation ceremony is unquestionably religious in nature and the fact that it can't be severed from the practice (whether or not the student ever sees another puja in his or her life) means that it steps over the line drawn, separating chuch and state.
This is analogous to the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine that mandates that all evidence against a criminal defendant that is illegally obtained by the state, and all evidence that flows from that initial illegallity (i.e., police illegally search a house and discover evidence that leads to other crime or crimes of the defendant), all of it must be suppressed and cannot be used against the defendant. (Easier said in theory than accomplished in actual practice.) If you can't teach TM without the puja, then you can't federally fund it in the classroom. If, however, a group of students who had started TM on their own began their own club, there would be no issue about that as far as I could see. ** --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Marek Reavis" <reavismarek@> wrote: > <snip> > > TM is religion based, [not] just religion derived. You > > can practice the meditation without the religion, but > > under the federal Constitution, the meditation > > instruction is unquestionably a religious ceremony. I > > cannot imagine the TMO overcoming the legal challenges > > that will be made against teaching the meditation (which > > requires the specific form of instruction utilizing the > > puja) in public schools. > > And if all the instruction (including puja and checking) > took place off school grounds? >
